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Architecture

All agents belonging to one user form the so called Agent Cluster where every single agent represents a certain aspect or skill of its user. Within such a cluster there are powerful services that support the developer of agents at various common tasks like communication, persistant storage of objects, security aspects etc.

3-Layer Model

As shown in the figure our agent infrastructure is composed of three logical layers. subchapters. All agents belonging to one user are combined in a so called Agent Cluster that resides in the agent layer. The directory, broker and trader services are situated in the so called DBT-Layer. Finally there's a service layer, where task specific services like the room-reservation service mentioned above can be found.

The Agent Cluster

Each user builds his own Agent Cluster tailored to his specific needs. For example most users will probably want to use a diary agent whereas not everyone needs an agent for management of a frequent flier account. Agents can dynamically enter or leave the cluster, driven by user request or by one of separate control agents present in each cluster.

Within a cluster agents can communicate via a software bus which we call Agent Bus. The bus is divided into separate subject-specific channels. Clients can join or leave these channels in a dynamic manner and events sent to a specific channel are seen by all its participants. Synchronous request-reply style communication is implemented on top of the Agent Bus. Currently we examine different realizations for such a software bus e.g. based on CORBA's Event Channel, Java's Jini Technology or iBus particularly with regard to performance, realtime aspects, resilience and expandability.

last modified by Frank Kargl,